Kerancuan bahasa: Cabaran dalam pendidikan negara dan pembinaan negara bangsa = Code mixing: Challenges in education and nation building

• Main Authors: Mahmor, Noor Aida, Ahmad, Faizah, Mansor, Nasariah
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: P Philology. Linguistics
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/13731/1/20.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/13731/; http://ipdm.uum.edu.my
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Code mixing is a widespread language phenomenon which refers to the mixing of two or more language varieties in informal communication. This practice has been widely accepted by multilingual communities.According to literature, code mixing has several functions namely to provide language backgrounds of the individual and to determine his/her social status. In Malaysia, code mixing occur not only in daily communications but also in creative writing especially in contemporary Malay novels.Writers claim that the use of code mixing in novels is mainly to provide accurate representations of contemporary society. However, this phenomenon is alarming because code mixing has become dominant in contemporary Malay novels. Excessive use of code mixing causes language problems and inconsistency when writers fail to observe the appropriate use of the language when writing.Often, language rules and grammar are abused and violated. In addition, when two or more language varieties are mixed in a single utterance, it creates confusions regarding language choice dan eventually affects the quality of the language. As a result, national identity and sense of belonging among teenagers will decline.This is because language is the identity of a nation.This paper aims to conduct a textual analysis on the types of language errors in Evelyn Rose's 'The Wedding Breaker' as a result of code mixing and how this phenomenon could affect national identity formation among teenagers and its general impact on nation building.The findings show that there is abundant of language errors in the novel due to code mixing.We argue that code mixing represents a 'bad' or confused language and therefore, leading towards a confused identity especially among Malaysian teenagers because they are the readers of contemporary Malay novels.According to critical literature, one of factors for a literary work to be considered as Malaysian national literature is based on its use of Malay language.Thus, placing the importance of Malay language in nation building.